Salvation Creek

by Susan Duncan

  I manage to stagger around the office for three months in what seems like smaller and smaller circles.Then, as the first wispy new fluffs of hair blossom into a full, curly thatch of an entirely new colour – black when I'd been red – I understand I can no longer go on. It is not just the exhaustion. It is the wrenching sadness I feel every time I walk into a tall, dark building, leaving behind the sky and the light of day.

  I miss the feel of the breeze on my face. Instead of the sexy tang of sea air, I mingle with the scents of hundreds of strangers that seem to me, in that time of heightened sensitivity, to be awash in an overpowering, synthetic stink. I miss the puppies and their uninhibited joy, their sweet earthy smell. I miss the easy, quiet pace of a community that has become a family. Every moment locked away in an artificial environment feels wasted. As I lie in my thundering city bedroom, I long for the light from a full moon to trickle quietly through my bedroom window instead of the pounding flashes from headlights.

  In the city, weather is to be endured. At Lovett Bay, it is better than television, a constant source of movement and change. Is it a day to sling on wet weather gear for a walk, to huddle in bed under feather quilts until the sun reaches the bay? Is it a day when the prevailing wind shucks all the boats with their noses pointing to Scotland Island, or a day when the wind, bad-tempered and erratic, spins them first one way and then another, like confused and cranky two year olds. Is it a day when the bush flattens out in the heat and turns so crisp it crackles underfoot? Or is it a day when the sun strikes molten hot after rain and the earth steams until each breath feels like sipping soup.You fling off shoes, wriggle toes in spongy grass and feel anchored to the land.

  Once, a snake, glossy as freshly shined black patent leather, swayed from the tip of its tail just outside the back door, its lipstick red belly a slash of warning. Shy but poisonous. Keep your distance. I hammer down my fear of snakes for long enough to see the beauty of her dance. Then slam the door. Red is often the colour of danger in the bush. Red-bellied black snakes. Red-back spiders. Red glow of bushfires.

  A diamond python takes refuge in the vine alongside the back porch where I tip the tea leaves. Gordon's python, perhaps. One day, the tea leaves uncoil and I can't help screaming, even though I know the snake is harmless. But I am not repulsed or deterred from continuing to tip my tea leaves in the same place. It is life. It is exciting in a way that restores the spirit instead of draining it. If my time is to be cut short then every moment must be as good as it gets.

  So I resign from my work. Again. I have done it so often now, it holds no fear for me.This time, it does not feel as though I am leaping into nothing, but instead, as though I am grabbing what is most important to me at this stage of my life. At Pia's city apartment, I pack my small suitcase for the last time, put the box, where my new silicone prosthesis spends each night, in a David Jones shopping bag, and drive home through the choking Sydney traffic.

  I am about to spend a heap of money renovating the house, I don't have a job, and I feel quite absurdly happy. It seems ridiculous to worry about the future. I don't even know if I have one. The truth is, none of us do. If you can look at that simple fact from the right angle, it is empowering. Fear doesn't mean much when you turn to face it. Just looking at what scares you most makes it smaller, easier to handle. Even, sometimes, downright ludicrous.

  I finally stop hedging my bets. In a peculiar way, what I've arrived at is faith. Not the religious kind, but the sort that comes from inside yourself.

  I slip back into the harmony of Lovett Bay life instantly and time, which I once filled with work, frantic partying or the lover, slows to a manageable pace. There is time to daydream, time to clean the grungy corners of windows and take pleasure in it, time to talk to Barbara on the verandah, time to give to other people. Half an hour slips by watching two little kids in bright yellow life jackets and floppy cotton hats sitting side by side in a boat the size of a bathtub. They are learning to row, and spin in laughing circles until they get the hang of it. It is a privilege, this gift of time, one that cannot be frittered negligently.

  I decide to get my growing hair coloured and go back to the hairdresser who was so kind when it was falling out.

  'Turn it auburn,' I tell him. 'A good, rich, red-brown colour.'

  Four hours later, I emerge fuchsia pink. 'You could guide the ferry in at midnight with your hair,' Bob says when he sees it.

  I return to the hairdresser. 'Make it blonde.'

  A week later, a friend comes to lunch. 'Interesting shade of green in your hair. Looks good with the purple streaks. Going punk?' she asks.

  Back to the hairdresser. 'Plain white will do.'

  I return from the washbasin and look in the mirror. My hair is canary yellow.

  Col, who fixed Stewart's wine rack nearly six years ago for Fleury's birthday, now owns the wonderful poultry supply shop Caotic Chook next to the hairdresser's. I see his reflection in the mirror. He's in shock.

  A few minutes later his wife, Cher, rushes in with a glass of red wine. 'Col thought you might need this,' she says.

  Back in Lovett Bay, the boys in the boatshed see me coming and money changes hands.

  'You let me down, Susan,' says Veit.

  'What do you mean?'

  'I tipped black this time. I lost the bet.'

  My loyalty to the hairdresser finally ends. I get a number two clip and begin again. Au naturel.

  Brigitte rushes in one morning on her way to catch the ferry, bowl of porridge in one hand, spoon in the other, the rest of her city necessities hurled in a bag slung over her back.

  'Susan. Susan,' she says. Always the double-barrelled monicker. Eating as she talks.

  'Hi, Brigitte. How are you? The boys?'

  'Good. Good. Susan! Susan! Do you think you could cook for the Elvina Bay Fire Shed dinner this month? There's no-one to do it.'

  'Sure. When is it and how many people?'

  'Friday night. There's usually about thirty people.'

  'Thirty!'

  'Yeah. But you only have to do one course. There's always a dessert competition and four or five people make cakes or pies, or something.'

  'Is there a budget?'

  'Well, spend as little as possible. The idea is to raise money for the fire brigade.'

  She scrapes the sticky edges of her bowl and puts it down on the seat on the back deck. 'I'll pick it up on the way home. So you're ok? You'll do it?' She's rushed and rushing.

  'Yeah. But how? Do I cook here or there?'

  'Cook everything here and we'll all help to carry it. I can do rice, if you need it. Let me know.'

  And she is gone in a swirl of ankle length skirt and shoulder length hair.

  On Thursday, when the builders come by via water taxi to discuss plans, I am knee deep in osso buco. The house is filled with smoke from searing the meat and the kitchen is chaotic. My biggest saucepans are scattered all over the kitchen benches and the smell of garlic and lemon fills the air. As usual, I am catering for the Russian army. Thirty people, Brigitte said, so I've raised it to sixty. Just in case. Wouldn't want anyone to go hungry.

  I slap cups of tea and slices of lemon cake in front of them and leave them to look around and measure on their own.

  'You having a party or something?' one of them asks.

  'Nope. Fundraiser for the fire shed.'

  'Oh? Is it the first Friday of the month already?'

  Late on Friday afternoon, Bob comes to help load the boat. One large cast iron pot and three enormous stainless steel pots are stacked so they won't fall. They weigh a ton each. Or that's what it feels like. Bob carries them uncomplainingly but I can see faint lines of disapproval around his mouth. I've over-catered. We both know it.

  'The average portion size per person is 250 grams,' he says, stepping into a rocking boat with the cast iron pot. 'You expecting the entire western foreshore community tonight?'

  'Maybe.'

  He gives up. I hand over a garbage bag filled with washed le
ttuce and a large bottle of salad dressing. Then another garbage bag filled with cooked penne I plan to warm in hot water for a minute or two before serving.

  'Is there anyone meeting us at the other end?' Bob asks.

  'No. I don't think so.'

  He sighs. 'Well, at least it's high tide. We can take the boat right in to the sea wall to unload. Means it's not quite so far to carry everything to the fire shed.'

  He starts the boat and we chug out of Lovett Bay, going past Trincomalee and around the bend into Elvina Bay. The fire shed is on the south side of the bay, near Beashel's Boat Shed. It's a typical fire shed. Weatherboard, cement floor and couple of roller doors. There's a small group of people gathered out front who turn as we approach and wander down to the boat.

  'Hi. I'm Lisa.'

  'Hi. I'm Alan.'

  'Hi. I'm Alan, too.'

  'He's Roy,' says Lisa, pointing at a quiet, shy bloke who turns out to be her husband.

  They grab saucepans and bags until there's nothing left, and I follow them empty-handed.

  From six o'clock onwards, tinnies glide in slowly as though drawn by a silent bugle call, and men, women, young kids and toddlers stroll, race or stumble past the wheelbarrows lined up along the jetty, towards the fire shed.

  'They're to cart the shopping home,' Bob explains, when I ask him what all the wheelbarrows are for.

  'They just leave them on the wharf?'

  'Yep.'

  'No-one nicks them?'

  'Nope.'

  When the crowd looks big, Roy raises the second roller door and drives the bright, shiny fire engine with its tank and hoses outside onto the grass, just in case the weather turns mean and we need shelter. He is laconic, with a dry sense of humour and makes us all laugh.

  Lisa, who is clearly a phenomenal cook and an even better organiser, directs the boys to set up serving tables, haul out piles of mismatched plates and cutlery donated over the years. She slams a load of homemade sausage rolls into the oven to feed the kids, and fills the urn to heat water for the washing up. People pay $7 and get a ticket for dinner, kids run riot and entertain themselves, and it's a great night out. Bottles of wine are opened and glasses filled and there's a quiet exchange of local information. Who will distribute the bags for clean-up day? Who needs hoses for a fire pump? Should there be a fire shed Christmas dinner this year as well as a kids' musical concert? Who'll be Santa Claus? Will there be any back-burning this summer? How's the season looking for bushfires?

  'Did you hear about Michelle's dog?' one of the Alans asks when dinner's been served and we're all sitting and eating.

  'No, what?'

  'Python got her.'

  There's a shocked silence.

  'Poor Millie,' says someone.

  'Oh, she's not dead,' Alan adds. 'Michelle saved her.'

  Michelle, who is terrified of snakes, was so incensed when the python began to strangle and crush her tiny chihuahua cross, she didn't stop to think. She grabbed the snake, whacking it until it released the dog.

  'Millie immediately bolted down the hill, raced down the jetty and jumped on the ferry at the end of the wharf where she leaped into some woman's lap and refused to move,' Alan continues. 'Impressive, don't you think, that a little dog understood it was the safest place for her?'

  Not long afterwards, the python, which is a non-venomous and usually non-aggressive snake, bit Michelle on the ankle when she passed by without seeing it. Do pythons have memories, I wonder?

  When everyone's eaten and the desserts have been judged, Lisa looks around. 'Bit left over, isn't there?' she says with a trace of a New Zealand accent. She looks at the bench. Pots are lined up like soldiers, most of them half full.

  'Nearly all the salad has gone, though,' I say in defence.

  'Hmm. Well, I'd say it's a perfect result. There's a fire shed meeting on Monday night and this will feed everyone.'

  She grins and so do I, and we begin loading leftovers into plastic containers to freeze. Whoever happens to be standing near the sink starts the washing up and nearly everyone takes a turn. There's no formal organisation, it just happens in the way things do when everyone is considerate.

  'Time to leave?' Bob comes into the kitchen, shoulders hunched as usual, face looking worn. I look at Lisa.

  'Yep. Nothing else to do here. Don't worry about taking the pots and pans. I've got to whiz in to Lovett Bay tomorrow and I'll drop them off.'

  And she thanks me, and so does everyone else. And they say wonderful things about the food and I feel as though I have been useful. Which is a good feeling. And ok, my ego fluffs a little. But not enough to worry about.

  Lisa reimburses me for the food and Bob and I follow the path to the jetty by the light of the moon.

  'Will you be coming to the Christmas dinner in a couple of weeks?' Lisa calls.

  'Love to,' I yell back. 'Can I do anything?'

  'I'll let you know.'

  The boys in the boatshed, always friendly and cheerful even on the dankest mornings, are my daily entertainment. Each day I watch big, tired yachts, with peeling paint and a whole marine environment attached to their hulls, get towed in by a small, banged-up tinny and coaxed into a wooden cradle to be lifted from the water. Then the scraping, sanding, painting – a complete makeover, as we'd say in the women's magazine business – begins. It is hard, dirty work but little by little, oysters, mussels, clumps of seaweed and every kind of barnacle, are scraped from the hull. Little chips and indentations are filled, sanded back and smoothed over until, finally, rollers on long poles are used to swish on the paint. A racy, graceful thin line in a contrasting colour is painted around the hull about a foot below deck, giving even the plumpest, most cumbersome boats a youthful lift. Occasionally, a boat gets painted deep burgundy or elegant black. Whatever the colour, the end result is that sad, tired old shells are transformed into confidently beautiful vessels.

  At the risk of sounding sentimental, I feel Lovett Bay is having the same effect on me. Layers of emotional baggage are being sifted so I can edit out the lousy episodes and store the finer moments. The last shreds of grief about the boys, the anger with the lover? Tossed out and drowned. I can choose to hang on to old hurts and perhaps blame them for any unhappiness. But why go down that path when it is so much more pleasant to remember the best times and aim, instead, for contentment?

  I don't know if I would have arrived at all these conclusions in the course of time or whether being ill hastened the process. Whatever the answer, whenever I make a wish (on a falling star, on the first cherry of the season, on any number of rites instilled by my mother that I haven't been able to shake off and perhaps never will), it is always the same. Give me health and I will take care of the happiness myself.

  Much later, when I have nestled into the unhurried tempo of a life that revolves around weather and whim instead of deadlines and schedules, I learn my Little Gairie Beach shack buddy,Tony, is seriously ill.

  'Come and stay for a while,' I tell him when I visit him in hospital where he's having chemo and radiation therapy for oesophageal cancer. 'Come directly to me. Don't even go home for a day or two.'

  He is weak and tired and I know what is squirming around his mind.

  'Come to Lovett Bay and let me feed you up,' I continue. 'We'll pretend we're at the shack.'

  'Your house,' he says to me with a raised eyebrow and curled lip, his face as pale as the hospital pillow under his head,'is exactly the same as the shack except it has running water and a dishwasher.

  I,' he adds like a politician delivering a speech, 'reminded you about the best parts of your childhood at my shack and you went off and found a shack of your own.'

  And I realise he is right. When my brother and I were still young enough to be at primary school, rare family holidays usually meant a trip to Phillip Island, where we stayed in a wobbly shack built from bits of wood nailed to a frame. The shack belonged to my grandfather's sister, Auntie Mert, and her husband, Uncle Albert. Uncle Albert was famous in the
family for his aversion to work.

  'Come and help with breakfast, Albert,' Auntie Mert would say.

  'Just wait till I light my pipe,' he'd reply.

  'We need some wood for the fire, Bert.'

  'Just wait till I light my pipe.'

  My mother says it was always 'just wait till I light my pipe' and my dad tipped that when the angel Gabriel told him to come on in through the pearly gates, Albert would pause and drawl, 'Just wait till I light my pipe.'

  The thing was, though, that Uncle Albert found his passion at this little shack on Phillip Island. Auntie Mert always went fossicking for beautiful shells, which were everywhere in those days. She collected so many Uncle Albert started playing with them until he created wonderful designs.Then he set his works of shell art in concrete and panelled the side and front fence. People eventually came from miles around to see it. Overseas visitors often sent him shells from distant corners of the world to add to his collection.

  'Found his niche,' my mother said. 'Took him a long time. But that can happen. Only the lucky ones know exactly what they want to do. Never forget Mert, though. She was a worker. Didn't even make five feet and she could swing an axe like a man. Don't think she ever sat down. Not that I saw, anyway.'

  I wondered, when she told me this story, whether my mother lived in an era when characters were revered instead of reviled, when to be odd meant individual and special, not mad. Was hers an era when conditions were so strenuous there was neither the time nor desire to pluck away at the frailties of people who did not conform?

  Before Auntie Mert and Uncle Albert fixed up the shack and sold it at a profit, the roof was tin and the kitchen had a single kerosene burner in one corner. There was a cupboard with a curtain to hide a couple of pots and a few chipped plates. Dishes were washed outside under the tap at the base of the water tank. When the wind blew, which it does most of the time on this bleak island off the coast of Victoria, there were so many gaps in the walls my skirt would kick up as I sat at the kitchen table.